The Illuminated Donkey

Suddenly, in the harsh darkness of three in the morning, it all makes complete sense. I need to get married and have a child, preferably a son, by the end of 2005.

Happy Easter or, as it was known in the Goldstein household in my youth, 50% Off Solid Milk Chocolate Bunnies Eve. Which explains so much.

By the way, don't bother to see the Daniel Buren installation at the Guggenheim; it's total ass.

Well, That Wasn't Too Bad, After All. 21-day flu completely banished from my system, my new room in some sort of order, all-logic-to-the-contrary-increasingly-difficult job...well, they pay me every Friday, and I need the money, and the sun was briefly shining this morning and things are looking ever-so-slightly up! Okay, granted, I ended up in an incredibly crowded and stress-inducing Central-NJ mall/restaurant (featuring a one-hour-plus wait for a table at three in the afternoon!) for my brother's birthday and my morning's happiness quickly transmogrified into a snarling tenseness, but as long as I felt worry-free for an hour I can feel it again; that's my motto!

Yes, worry-free and even a certain anticipation. Sure, I really loved the Pulaski-Skyway-overlooking Brunswick Towers, my home for almost three years (and which was almost my home for even longer until a certain series of events took place which I really can't get into in this forum but ask me when you see me), but I had forgotten just how exciting it was to move to a brand-new area, with all the discovery and exploration that goes along with that. And two weeks after I moved in, today I finally had the chance to walk around my new neighborhood to find what I've gotten myself into.

First off, this part of town has a little more historic interest than my old area, with the oldest continuous school site in the U.S., a Revolutionary War strategy meeting-place between General Washington and Major General de Lafayette, a couple of centuries-old cemeteries, and some interesting church architecture. There's a homemade chocolate shop (too crowded to check out this day before Easter), a record store specializing in old soul, and of course a pile of 99-cent shops and the like. And it's also a little refreshing to have some non-Indian (or sketchy Chinese) food options available. In a really sweet turn of events there's an Ethiopian restaurant a few blocks from my house, one which prominently features a review from Amy Wilson by way of Tris McCall on its front window. There's a decent looking Vietnamese place and a Cuban bakery, and even closer to home there's a 24-hour place serving what must upwards of 100 different cheap fried foods, perfect after those 3 a.m. walks home from the PATH train.

Okay, it ain't all great. I've been woken up more times by street noise this week than in the last six months, and parking can be almost impossible to find some nights. And there are just way too many Jesuits hanging around the neighborhood. But what is parking trouble when compared to mystery and anticipation? Not much at all, I say.

Ever since I discovered my new local laundry's wash/fold service, my life is looking a whole lot better.

Greetings from Times Square USA! Blogging will resume when I finish unpacking all of my computer equipment and get everything set up. To be more specific, it will resume when I can make some sense of the dozens of boxes, boxes, boxes that my life has become, the inevitable result of moving into about half the room space, which was, in turn, the inevitable result of looking for a new place to live with a temperature on the wrong side of 102. I remain in Jersey City, on the opposite side of Journal Square, but who knows for how long? Damn it all to hell.

I hate when I open a bottle of soda and notice that the inside of the bottlecap says something like "SORRY PLEASE TRY AGAIN" and all of a sudden I'm a loser and I didn't even know I was playing a damn game.

Okay, first things first: yes, I am still sick. This has been one week-long bitch of a whatever-the-hell I have, with constantly changing symptoms that seem to have all converged in my throat. I finally went to a doctor yesterday, and right now I'm on enough antibiotics and OTC medications to ensure that I should probably never drive again. And during this whole crapfest, I've had to pack and search for a new place to live.

And that search has gone fairly poorly, a sudden and unwelcome change from my lifelong housing good fortune. In Seattle, I only had to look for a place for two days, and the second place I looked at ended up being my home for four years. Then when I started looking in Jersey City I found my current building on my first try, then found a second room in the same building with not much more effort. And now...great big piles of crap. That is, when people even bother to keep the appointments I make to check out their crappy homes. I did find a passable situation, near where I currently live, that I figure will hold me for a few months until I can regroup and start searching again. But I am completely unpsyched about it.

I guess that's it for now.

Still sick.

Great, back blogging for a day and I come down with an ugly, achy cough. I blame you people, one of whom should be apologetic enough to come over and pack.

I Think I Am Making a Huge Freaking Mistake! Basically, I need to move...oh, let's say this Saturday. As in four freaking days from now, and of course nothing is really packed, though most of my things are still in the same boxes as they were when I moved in here. Now, 'here' happens to be the second different room I've subletted in this building I've grown to like very much, so when I found a third room available I was nine kinds of psyched.

But suddenly it just seems completely wrong! There's was this weird vibe a-happening when I stopped by and I started to get all nervous and wonder if my wanting to stay in the building trumped some obvious negative aspects but then if not, where? And how, since I'd have to pack and rent a truck and the whole thing, and what the hell am I gonna do?!

Crap.

A Tragic Tale? A Warning? A New Dramatic Format? Presented, in the form of sequential Craigslist personals, The Saga of Evelyn. And for some supplemental materail, check here and here.